Saturday, 7 July 2012

Dominant Hill - the Elblingberg

With much of the flood plain of the river Wein a quagmire there was only one route for the army of Fromagere, the main highway.

This was of course also obvious to Count Olaf of Weinpfalz and as he and general Bojollay pored over the map it became clear that they needed to stop the enemy at the town of Elbling which controlled the crossroads and the way into the foothills. Simultaneously they pointed to the same spot on the map. "We must get here first." they said.

The Duke of Fromagere had no map but whilst his hussars were mostly vagabonds they did scout well and had effective methods of extracting information from the local populace. A two day march and the heartland of Weinpfalz would open up to him, and Wilhelmina might be more amenable to his suggestion of marriage.

Dominated by the Elblingberg the pretty little town of Elbling grew because of it's position on the crossroads of the main highways between middle and lower Weinpfalz. Wine would move east to the river ports on the navigable Wein and other produce, such as cheese and grain, came back on the same wagons.

In late spring of 1736 the hard working population had piled their own possessions on these wagons and hastily evacuated their homes. For Elbling was the point on the map that was to be fought over.